Encounter with Violence, Thieves in Time story 5
by Orion Lyonesse
Summary: Blake's gone and Vila is paying the price. Avon may be competent to lead the crew, but on the subject of Blake he is quite insane. Can Vila help him to pick up the pieces of his shattered sanity? Follows 'Freedom's Chains.' A/V. WARNING: sex and violence.


_A/N: This Chapter Five of Thieves in Time. It follows Freedom's Chains. Blake is gone and Avon, in his madness, deals with Blake's loss in the only way he can._

_Warning: mature content! Warning: mature content! Warning: mature content! Sexual content and violence!_

_The usual disclaimer: I own nothing of Blake's Seven. I just enjoy messing with their lives. Well, in this chapter, not so much._

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Avon stalked the corridors of the Liberator looking for Vila. He knew Vila was hiding, he'd been doing that a lot lately, whenever Avon needed him, like he did now. Avon's rage grew as he searched. He grew colder and colder.

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Vila sat in a dark corner of the room, his back to the wall. His legs were crossed at the ankles and his knees drawn up to meet his bowed head. His arms were wrapped around his head. All in all, a most miserable sight.

He heard footsteps in the corridor and began to shiver violently as the door shushed open. Someone, and Vila feared he knew who, entered without hesitation, stopped a moment to survey the dark room, then reached to bring up the lights. Vila knew he'd been discovered and would pay for hiding. He tried to pull in on himself, to get as small as he could. Maybe HE wouldn't notice him and would go away. Vila shook more violently.

"GET UP!" Avon's hard voice shocked Vila, freezing him so completely that even his shivers stilled. It came from directly in front of and above his cowering form. However, immobility wouldn't save him now.

He felt his wrist seized and wrenched upward. His eyes flew open in surprise and shock as Avon's superior size and bulk yanked him upward to shove him limply against the wall. Avon's eyes pinned him there, after he released the thief's wrist and stepped back.

Avon smiled, setting the hair on Vila's neck at attention. Avon's voice went deadly soft now. "Did you think you could hide from me, little thief? I know all the places you hide, all the bolt holes. You can't escape me, so why do you keep trying?" he finished almost curiously. Vila said not a word, standing immobile with his hands pressed flat against the wall supporting him.

"No answer, thief? Well, no matter. Strip, Vila, NOW!" came the order Vila had feared to hear.

He found his voice then, to plead desperately, "Please, Avon, no. Let me go! I'll go away, you'll never have to see me again. Put me off anywhere, please, Avon?" His words had no effect on Avon's implacable expression.

Vila could see, though, that Avon was getting impatient with his stalling and would soon make Vila pay for it – just as Vila was being made to pay, over and over, for his supposed crime, that of depriving Avon of his lover, by having the simple temerity to return to the Liberator when Blake didn't. Nothing Vila could say, no reasoning, no logic, no tearful pleading or reminder of their shared past could penetrate the hate Avon projected at the thief and wreaked upon his body. On this subject at least Avon was quite insane. Vila often wondered if the others could see the insanity. Cally probably knew, but she couldn't do anything about it. The others – well, they didn't know Avon very well yet, though Vila felt sure they'd also perceive this madness, in time.

Slowly, postponing the inevitable as long as possible, Vila began to undress. Avon watched, no expression crossing his face, as Vila took off one piece of clothing after another, dropping each into a pile at his feet. He had barely shed the last article when the order came.

"Over there," Avon ordered, pointing to a small round table across the room. At first, Vila was puzzled. What did Avon want him to do at a table?

Avon himself solved the mystery. "Across the table, Vila, on your face, and grab two of the table legs.

Now Vila WAS terrified. "Please, Avon, please, no!" he sobbed, almost incoherent with fear.

At his words, Avon spun Vila around to face him, and growled menacingly, "I don't want to hear another word out of you! If I do," his voice shifted, almost purring, "I'll take my belt to your backside."

Vila gasped and looked down quickly at the heavy black, silver-studded belt Avon was wearing, at all those pointy studs. If he hadn't been pale before, this idea would have drained his face white.

"No, Avon," he protested, bringing up his hands to ward off an incipient attack.

"You never learn, do you, Vila? You're a typical, stupid Delta that never learns, aren't you, Vila?" As he spoke, Avon slowly undid his belt and draped it across Vila's neck and shoulders, holding Vila in place all the while with his hot smoldering eyes. Then he began to undress, unhurriedly. He nearly folded his clothes and arranged them in a tidy pile.

Just watching the tech disrobe had aroused Vila, as Avon knew it always did. After all, Avon knew how beautiful both Blake and Vila found him. That knowledge and the thought of what was to come had already aroused Avon.

Vila remembered back to when Blake had been around and the rebel and Avon had been lovers. Vila had enjoyed sex with Avon in the past, from their shared youth and young adulthood. Now, though, sex had come to equal punishment in Vila's book, so, even though aroused physically, Vila was terrified of what was to come.

"The table, Vila," Avon prompted, almost gently, taking the belt by its buckle and sliding it slowly from Vila's shoulder. "And remember – I don't want to hear a word out of you, not one," he finished ominously.

Vila moved toward the table on leaden limbs. It was a small table, low enough and wide enough to accommodate his torso comfortably. He leaned over, arranging himself, then, reached under the top of the table, feeling around until he could grasp the legs themselves. Then he waited, crying silent tears of frustration and fear onto the hard table top that he was pressing his face into. He kept his face averted as he heard Avon approach.

As he felt the heat of Avon's skin and the touch of his cock on his rear, he burst out, "Please, Avon, don't!" He knew instantly that he'd made a severe mistake, as the studded belt whistled through the air to land agonizingly across his back, not once, but three times, once for each word he'd uttered against Avon's prohibition.

Vila gasped and nearly passed out with the pain. In order to keep incipient words pent up, Vila bit down on his own lip, tasting blood, knowing that no matter what, he couldn't say another word to Avon.

Vila knew what to expect now. Without any foreplay or preparation, Avon entered Vila and pressed himself against Vila's body, Avon's heat burning Vila's skin wherever they touched. Vila moaned uncontrollably as he felt his insides tear from the force of Avon's entry. Taking no notice, Avon began to pump in and out, faster and faster, until he came, marked only by silence and a cessation of motion for Vila. Waiting absolutely motionless and silent, Vila felt Avon withdraw, felt the burning skin leave him, heard the slap of Avon's bare feet on the floor as he returned to his clothes and started to dress. Still Vila waited.

At last Avon spoke. "Get up, Vila, and get out. Now!" The voice sneered as though Vila were beneath contempt.

Finally released from his self-bondage, Vila slowly disengaged himself from the table and turned, facing Avon.

"I'm not to blame, you know, for Blake's leaving you," he said in a sad, small voice. "You drove him away."

"I WHAT?" Avon roared, in a fair imitation of Blake's outraged bellow. His eyes blazed at Vila. "He loved me and you drove him away from me. You came back, when he didn't. It's your fault he's not here with me now instead of you!"

Vila knew this fury in Avon, knew that any second Avon could snap and wreak more violence upon Vila's person, but right now he just didn't care anymore. For the friendship and love they'd once enjoyed, he had to try at least this once to get through to Avon, through the madness, to the one he remembered, that he suspected was hiding inside, behind this white hot rage.

"No, Avon," he continued more forcefully, daring to raise his voice and approach the outraged, stiff body standing naked in the middle of the room. "Blake left you; I didn't drive him away. He was being crushed by the rebellion, by responsibility for us all, by the sheer weight of his cause. Maybe," Vila's voice quieted, "maybe he was going insane, too, those last few months, chasing after Star One. It was an obsession with him and he couldn't let it go."

"And don't tell me you two weren't having problems then, either. If the others couldn't see it, I could! Blake threw you out of his bed, didn't he?" Vila guessed, suddenly sure of his diagnosis. "Even you couldn't handle him. You tried to use sex to control him and it didn't work, did it? He saw what you were trying to do and threw you out, didn't he?"

Vila's voice became more forceful as he attacked this perceived weak point. Avon's face had blanched and his body thrummed visibly. "Is that what happened, Avon, is it?" Vila pressed the attack, forcing Avon to retreat step by step before his onslaught, until Avon was brought up short by a wall. Unable to escape further, he pressed his back into the wall and slid down it into a heap on the floor, in a bizarre echo of Vila's earlier position.

Vila knelt in front of him, not letting up now that he had Avon in retreat. "Answer me, Avon, is that what happened?" The reply came so softly and from so far away that Vila had to strain to hear it.

"Yes, oh, yes. He ordered me out, away from him, forever, he said. He…said he didn't love me, had never loved me, that I didn't matter anymore." Avon's eyes stared unblinking, unseeing, unfocused. His words, his tone of voice, cut Vila to the heart with their pain, but gave him hope that maybe, finally, Avon could exorcise this ghost that was feeding his madness. Vila reached across between their two naked bodies and clasped Avon's shoulders to comfort him, to give him an anchor to cling to in the whirling maelstrom of emotion threatening to sweep Avon's mind away into a dark pit somewhere.

At the touch, Avon flinched, then focused on Vila's face for the first time. "You're right, Vila, he did reject me there at the end." His voice was low and weary, tired almost beyond his ability to utter the words. "When…he didn't return to the ship, and you did, I…knew I'd never get the chance to win him back. I blamed you for simply being alive and here when possibly he was neither. He BETRAYED ME by leaving or…dying, and I…lashed out at you in my pain." Avon was shaking violently now, but Vila could see that his eyes were clearing, the cloud of madness rent to tatters and blown away.

Vila, that perceived coward, dared greatly then, sat and pulled Avon into his arms, noting in the back of his mind that Avon's skin was cold now, almost as cold as death.

Avon stiffened as Vila's arms went around him, but after a tense moment he relaxed and allowed the embrace. His head came to rest on Vila's shoulder, his dark hair all that Vila could see. Vila could feel the shudders subsiding. When they had eased completely, Vila heard Avon's voice again.

"What have I done to you, Vila, what have I done? You were never responsible for any of this, but still I blamed you and…hurt you. Why, Vila? Why?" At the last word, he pulled back and looked Vila straight in the face, locking tormented eyes with the thief.

"I think," began the thief, "that it was your only way of asking for help. You had to go on, making decisions, dealing with the new crew members, with the war, the Liberator, everything that Blake had dealt with, without his cause to bolster you like it did him. You had no support, so you lashed out in the only way you could and still survive physically. You took it out on me…like this."

He stopped as Avon moaned and curled up upon himself across Vila's lap. But Vila wasn't having any of that. He shook Avon's shoulders and forced him to look up before he went on. "That's what happened, Avon, but it's in the past now. We can go on from here, if…" his words trailed off as he continued to stare into Avon's eyes, waiting.

"If what, Vila?" came the soft reply Vila had hoped for.

"If you'll accept my support. Let ME be your anchor, your constant. Then we just go on from there. You have a ship, a crew, you're free of Blake's cause. You can do anything you want to, don't you see? You just have to get on with life." He stopped his impassioned words, waiting to see what effect they would have on Avon. He dared to hope as he saw a small smile creep tentatively across those sculptured lips and glimmer in his eyes.

"You've always known so much, Vila, about people. Why's that, do you suppose?" Avon questioned wonderingly.

Vila smiled. "Well, you have to understand people if you're going to survive as a thief, don't you?'

"Well, I don't seem to be able to understand them at all. People are so…unpredictable. Not like computers. Them I understand. So," he drew the word out, "I guess I'll just have to depend on you for that, won't I?" he finished, his half smile broadening into a grin of acceptance

Vila smiled back almost happily, as they went about disentangling themselves and rising from the floor. As Vila moved away to get his clothes, he heard Avon gasp in shock.

"Vila, your back!" he cried.

Vila suddenly became aware of the fire and pain in both is back and his insides. He stopped dead and felt Avon coming up behind him. Avon put a tentative hand on Vila's shoulder, causing a small flinch that pierced Avon's heart.

He turned Vila around to face him. Searching Vila's eyes, he said simply, "Vila, I'm sorry." Then, "Put your pants on. I'm taking you to medical to get this tended to – now!" With that, he turned and dressed.

When he'd finished he turned to find Vila barefooted, clad only in his pants, standing quietly nearby. Seeing Vila's uncertainty and natural reluctance to approach him right now, Avon bridged the gap and, taking Vila's hand, led him out of the room.

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_A/N: While I always enjoy receiving reviews, I'm not sure I want them on this chapter. I don't know where it came from, except that it was written during a very difficult period in my own life. By rights, it properly belongs in the volume, __Black And Blue__ (see my profile), but it serves a purpose here, to get Vila and Avon back together, at least the start of that._

_The next chapter/story in chronology is Safe, previously published and newly edited and updated. It involves time travel and two Avons! The following chapter/story is …Ever I Saw Your Face, when Avon deals with Anna Grant and comes to his senses regarding Vila. _


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